Mid-season chimney inspection/cleaning today

[precaud]

Nothing earth-shattering about this report, but I thought I'd share it just for the halibut, seeing that it's a new chimney system and stove this season.

We had a mild day today (mid-40's and sunny) so I decided to let the system cool and check it out. (Just FYI, it's 4 ft from stove to tee, 14 ft insulated liner from tee to top.) Looking with a mirror from below, it looked good, not a big accumulation at all. Most of it was in the first 5-6 feet from the stove. Since I just got the correct poly brush, I went up on the roof and cleaned it. Two rubber bands around a small walmart plastic shopping bag caught the fallout. All in all, it filled about 2/3 of the bag with light, fluffy stuff. Not bad at all for burning nothing but pinon, a pitchy, dense pine. I probably could go the whole season on one cleaning, but I prefer to keep in touch.

Do I notice an improvement in draft in tonight's fires? Maybe a little. But that wasn't the point of this. These mid-season checkups give confidence and peace of mind. Heating with wood is good.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

thats why you do it , yes you might have gone all the way through (possibly uneasily thinking about if you should check it) but checking the flue a time or two per season is somthing that all woodburners should do, most every day when im burning wood in the old 24-ac, i'll glance up at the cap to see if i see any buildup (its really a good indicator but no substitute for looking in the flue) seeing it clean makes me feel confident my house will be there when i get home. there's no substitute for peace of mind. sounds like a good report, hopefully everybody will take a peek now that its mid season.

keep it lit

mike

 

[elkimmeg]

I already done my mid season clean out a couple of weeks back but I also monitor what's going on. Really I think this is a very wise practice. One tha all should do or at least examine what the current condition is.

 

[BrotherBart]

Ran a brush down both pipes when they said the ice was coming. I don't want to even think about walking up there with the ice pack that is on that roof right now. I would heat the joint with candles before I would do that.

 

[stangds]

what do you guys do with the creosote/soot?

 

[precaud]

what do you guys do with the creosote/soot?

Let's see... if you're nearing the end of your woodpile, you could burn it.
Or, you could put it in the recycling bin - it is biodegradeable...

Just for grins, I weighed mine - all of 6.2 ounces, including the bag.

Let's see... 6.2 oz divided by 3,000 lbs of wood = 99.99987083% combustion efficiency. That's how they figger it, right?

 

[TMonter]

Some Pictures of My Chimney Inspection/Cleaning Today:

 

[TMonter]

More Pictures

 

[TMonter]

Picture of what came off the cap.

As usual, the chimney was clean about 1 to 1.5 foot down the pipe so I'm only getting cooling as the gas exits. This makes sense with how I insulated the pipe. About the last 10 inches of pipe is not insulated.

To note, this is about 9 weeks of burn time since the last chimney cap cleaning.

 

[budman]

TM I don't know what you are burning but i cleaned mine beginning of DEC and again on FEB 10th
and i didn't have anything close to that. :ahhh:

 

[precaud]

Some Pictures of My Chimney Inspection/Cleaning Today:

Hmmm... looks pretty nasty. Is that liner insulated? You accumulation is the opposite of mine, that's why I'm wondering. The top 2/3 of mine was quite clean all the way to the topper.

 

[ozarkjeep]

dang!

Ive been burning green white oak, ( cut a couple of months ago)

and mine isnt nearly that bad.

Its a 20' liner uninsulated on an exterior chimney.

my cap gets nasty, but the liner isnt nearly that bad!

 

[Gunner]

Havn't touched my cap once...have burned 2.5 cords and it looks the same as new. I don't know what I'm doing but it's working.

 

[wahoowad]

I have to admit I have been complacent and not cleaned/checked once this season. I said I would do it at least twice and am dissapointed in myself. My last cleaning was literally one year to the day (Feb-18-06) so I'm burning down the coals so I can clean it. Very interested to see what I get.

 

[budman]

I have to admit I have been complacent and not cleaned/checked once this season. I said I would do it at least twice and am dissapointed in myself. My last cleaning was literally one year to the day (Feb-18-06) so I'm burning down the coals so I can clean it. Very interested to see what I get.

LET US ALL KNOW :coolsmirk:

 

[rudysmallfry]

Just did mine today too. Been burning my fallen Poplar tree from last year, lots of rounds. Most of the time I've been starting daily from an almost cold stove. Despite my 80 degree elbow, only a trace of film was present all the way up. Made a few passes with the brush, but barely enough to fill a shot glass. I'm very happy to find that with my new setup this year, there's absolutely no extra collection in the elbow area. I've been keeping the stack around 350, so looks like it's working just fine.

 

[TMonter]

Remember only the top 8 inches to 1 foot gets dirty like that. The rest of the chimney stays perfectly clean.

I'm burning a combination of Red Fir, and the last couple weeks a bit of pine I had leftover.

I also burn close to the condensation point for VOC's on my chimney quite a bit. I'm usually burning with a stack temp of 280-315. And the burning softwoods versus hardwoods doesn't help.

 

[wahoowad]

Thanks for the inspiration, precaud! Everything looked good!

 

[precaud]

Thanks for the inspiration, precaud! Everything looked good!

That's what we like to hear!

 

[budman]

Thanks for the inspiration, precaud! Everything looked good!

No vegatation like TMONTER i take. :cheese:

 

[BrotherBart]

Thanks for the inspiration, precaud! Everything looked good!

No vegatation like TMONTER i take. :cheese:

Hey, nothing wrong with a Chia Cap!

 

[budman]

Thanks for the inspiration, precaud! Everything looked good!

No vegatation like TMONTER i take. :cheese:

Hey, nothing wrong with a Chia Cap!

BB, your to much

 

[Gooserider]

We haven't done ours yet, probably won't until the end of burning season unless I see signs we need it sooner. Last year we probably had a couple gallons worth from the seasons accumulation. This year we have been following the advice of our sweep and what I've seen here, and been running the stove a bit hotter most of the time, and trying to get in at least one good hot burn a day. So far it seems to be working good, I have some accumulation on the cap screen, and some "icicles" around the edges of the cap, but it's still mostly clean.

Given the setup on our chimney, I'm not sure how I'd ever get up to clean it if it was really clogged, currently even our sweep cleans it from the bottom.... I've seen mention of the idea of having "chicken ladders" permanently mounted on the roof to get up to the chimney. Does anyone have any pointers on the best way to do that so that I won't cause roof leaks, and won't have problems with snow building up on the ladders and causing an ice dam or similar issues? The roof currently has two layers of shingles on it, the first layer from when the house was built, the second layer we had put on about eight or nine years ago, using 20 or 25 year asphalt shingles, one step short of "architectural" shingles. I would presumably need two ladders, one to get me from the low point on the roof to the base of the chimney, and a second to get me up the chimney itself.

Gooserider